A busy couple of weeks

For a place with no institutionally determined schedule, we sure can keep ourselves busy. The last week is a case in point. After my last post we started discussions on professional practices topics - starting with goal setting and time management. We also started our group critiques with the work of four students on January 28. And then on January 29 things started to get interesting.
We hosted Sue Taylor, art historian at Portland State University, critic, and author of numerous reviews, articles, and the book, "Hans Bellmer: The Anxiety of Anatomy. Before arriving at Cranbrook Taylor lectured at Wayne State University in Detroit on the work of the art critic. On the 30th she presented a lecture titled, "Feminism and Femmage since 1970" at Cranbrook. That was followed by a very intense afternoon of critiques in the Fiber Department. We finished the day with a dinner in Sue's honor.
Saturday brought the opening of my Artist in Residence show at the Cranbrook Art Museum.
On Sunday the museum hosted a lecture titled "Cartoon Violence" by Phoenix based, mixed media artist Jon Haddock. You can see his work at whitelead.com Jon spent the day on Monday meeting individually with Fiber Students and the evening brought a dinner in Jon's honor with the Fiber and Photo departments.
After a rest day on Tuesday we returned to departmental critiques on Wednesday with the work of four more students. Most of the critiques were of the work of second year students who are all starting to develop their Degree Exhibition projects in various ways.

The second semester has started

Actually it started last week, and while things are relatively quiet next week brings a lot of activity. Before that, today, we have presentations by the second years. They will each make 30 minute presentations about the development of their work.
Next week we have our first day of critiques and our first visiting critic. Sue Taylor from Portland State University, Portland, OR will visit the department on January 30. In the morning she will present a lecture entitled, "Feminism and Femmage since the 1970s". In the afternoon she will lead a group critique with the students. Sue uses psychology to interpret artwork and her insights and comments about the work should be very interesting.
On Sunday February 1 mixed media artist Jon Haddock will present his lecture entitled "Cartoon Violence," at the museum. On the second he will meet individually with students in Fiber.
Never a dull moment around here.

Some images from first year final critiques

Derya Hanife Altan presenting her work.

Ema Ishii with part of her installation.

Rosemary Dardick with her work on the window.

Emily Nachison with her sculpture / installation.


Casey Droege with her prints.


Ashley Allen Short's work.

Rose Pink's critique of her sound piece.


Tricia Stackle with her work.

Third Semester Reviews

December 8-12 brought us Third Semester Reviews which are the old fourth semester reviews moved from February to December. I think I wrote about these last year, but just in case, the reviews are meetings between each student and five Artists in Residence (AIRs). Each student meets with their assigned AIRs throughout the day. They meet and share discussions about the work the students have been doing and how they might move forward. It is a very exciting time because all of the work that has been done by the second year students is on view so the whole community gets to see what is going on and because the students are interested in hearing feedback from the AIRs from other departments. Fiber and Sculpture presented on Thursday and all six of the second year students did very well. I think they also gathered new insights and questions that will propel their work in interesting directions for their degree show and future beyond Cranbrook.


above from Amy DiPlacido's review.



from JaYoung Yoon's review.

Emily's new work

Emily Nachison is one of the first year students and these are images of one of her sculptures and a drawing from a recent critique.

Collaboration at Cranbrook

The intimate size and nature of the Academy and campus helps foster a sense of community and active dialogue between departments within the Academy and projects that connect us to the other parts of the educational community(as evident in the two prior posts). On occasion students discover similar concerns and goals with students from other departments and set about to make work together. Last month Tricia Stackle (Fiber) and Andrew Kline (Architecture) began such a venture that resulted in a large scale project being installed temporarily on the campus. Below are a couple of photos of their nest made of red hand made felt.


To see more images you can check out Andrew's website:

http://web.me.com/andrewkline/Andrew_Kline.com/Work/Pages/Nest.html

Insert Color Here

On November 20 the Fiber Department opened a show of work at the Kingswood Gallery on the Cranbrook campus. The show, "Insert Color Here," is part of the exchange between the Academy Fiber Department and the Weaving Studio at Kingswood mentioned in the earlier post about workshops the Academy students are teaching.
Here are some photos from the opening.